In recent years the amount of data produced and stored by enterprises has increased exponentially. Searching the data to find relevant records poses a significant challenge. Various techniques exists which typically involve entering a search string to search for relevant data. However, remembering the search terms and constructing the search string can be difficult for inexperienced users.
For example, if a user wants to search for all records sent by User A on 3 Dec. 2010, they might have to enter a structured search string such as “AuthorID=User A AND Recdate=03Dec10”. If they wish to search for all records (e.g. emails) received by User B on 3 Dec. 2010, they might have to enter a structured search string such as “RecipID=User B AND Receiveddate=03Dec10”. Not only is typing these search terms cumbersome, if any search term is spelt incorrectly or date entered in a different format (e.g. 03122010) then no matches or an error may be returned. Further, the user needs to remember the exact name of all of the search terms.